


Fic- How to Get Banned From Mini Golf

by Star_Nymph



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 10:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5245499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Nymph/pseuds/Star_Nymph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four loser kids go play mini golf together and it’s exactly as you expect it to be: a bad decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fic- How to Get Banned From Mini Golf

**Author's Note:**

> I stayed up until like 6am to write this, so damn right I think mini golf is funny. Slightly based off this vine (https://vine.co/v/eV7JQiaFI0K) because the words ‘Tim so would’ resounded in my head while watching it.

What to do on nights off was always the hard part. The Bat clan rarely had energy left to spare so on the occasion one of them was free for the night, they usually slacked off with a movie or knocked straight out on the first comfortable surface they came by (or not so comfortable, as Steph proved that one time when she passed out in the giant dinosaur’s mouth). As it was, it was mid-day when Black Bat, Red Robin, and Batgirl got the news that they were allowed some free time for the day—and with a newly-somewhat-kind of-who knows-slightly redeemed Red Hood bored out of his mind, the four of them figured it was a good idea to do something together.

Steph had been the one to suggest the completely (and kind of shockingly) normal idea of mini golf. ‘Happy World’s Golf-a-Palooza’ down in Gotham Heights had just opened a couple of weeks back and it had been a while since any of them did something even remotely kiddish. Cass didn’t know what golf was either, besides that thing Bruce hated to do and whined about all day, so they thought she’d like it enough.

Moreover, how much trouble could two twenty-somethings and two almost-twenty-somethings get into playing mini golf?

“It’s actually real simple, Cass. All you gotta do is use the golf club to whack the ball into the hole over there.” Jason pointed down the first course’s lane towards the little black hole. “The fewer turns it takes for you to get it in, the more points you get.”

Cass squinted, “No hands?”

“Nope. No hands or feet. Just the club.”

She hummed, holding the pink club she had picked out before and examining Jason’s red one. She swung it a few times experimentally, in the same way one swings a bat. On the third swing, Jason had to duck because she almost hit him and he’s pretty sure her swing is as killer as her punches. “Hold on! Hold on—jeez, lemme show you!” Grabbing hold of her hand, he guided her club down to the ground and showed her exactly how to move the stick.

Cass watched him do it once, then took over herself. She gave him a thumbs up and nod of her head. “Got it.”

Jason hoped so. It’d be funny to see her swing her golf club and throw into, say, into that fake pyramid over there but he’s sure that would be a thing against the rules and he’d hate to make this another place in Gotham he’s ban from so early in the night.

“Alright, kids! Let the games begin!” Steph exclaimed as she joined the two, Tim behind her with a bag of golf balls in his hand. As they approached, the blond smacked a notbook against Jason’s chest. “Big guy, you’re with me. Tim called dibs on Cass and I’d hate to leave you out on your lonesome.”

“Well, ain't you just sweet. Team name?”

“We are Team ‘Washed Out Rockstars Found Face Down In Our Pool’.”

“Nice. And them?”

“Team ‘Child Prodigies Who Are Now Normal People and Can’t Deal’.” Tim answered, winking at Cass as he let her take a look in the bag. Grinning, she fished out the hot pink ball and showed it to Steph, who showed off her own purple one. Jason went in next but narrowed his eyes when he couldn’t find what he wanted.

“Waitaminute, where’s—“

Tim held up the red ball and smirked. “Dibs, Todd.”

“You gotta be shitting me. You gotta let me match!”

“I gotta do nothing. You already got the red club! Let me have the red ball!”

“Why? So you can copy me like you always freaking do?”

“No.” Tim smirked and tossed the red ball into the air. “So I can kick your butt with your signature color and laugh.”

“You ballsy little—”Jason gritted his teeth and brought the club up hostilely. Not that it intimidated Tim, who readied his own green club like it was a sword. If they were about to get into a fight here, they might as well do it right and kick each other’s ass Shakespearean style. Unfortunately, before they could get medieval on each other over a red ball, Steph stepped in between them.

“Whoa there, Sir Too Much Hair Gel and Lord Daddy Issues! Save that energy for golf!” She said, then patted her purple club against Jason’s chest, pushing him away. “You can kick his ass on the field with our wickedly awesome gold skills.”

Frowning, Jason relented and slumped his shoulders. “Fine. Drake, your ass is grass.”

Cass came up besides Tim and linked their arms. The two of them shared eye contact for a second long—doing that kind freaky secret conversation thing they do—and then Tim nodded.

They both proceeded to stick their tongues out at Steph and Jason as they went to ahead to the course. Jason and Steph followed them, maybe shoving them as they went. Right, it was on like Dick drinking his seventh cup of coffee kind of on. So. Really, terrifyingly questionable kind of on.

Super on.

After a quick game of rock-paper-scissors, it was decided that Team ‘Washed Out Rockstars Found Face Down In Our Pool’ would go first. Stephanie declared before she even swung that she was a ‘pro golf master’ and for the rest to ‘watch and learn’. She then hit the ball a little harder than intended and missed the hole, it slowly smacking into the windmill behind it. She made a groan behind pursed lips, the scowl only deepening when Tim shouted ‘ha!’ behind her.

Jason went next and he took his sweet time. Getting down on his knees, he got his head level with the ball and used his club to measure out the exact angle it would take for him to get a hole in one. The exact super straight angle. The one right in front of him. It took every one maybe a minute of groaning for them to realize he was just messing them. Rolling her eyes, Steph shouted, “Come on, Jace!”

He, then, got up, barely even looked at the ball, and shot it right into the hole. Tim and Cass sneered at their brother as he sauntered back to them with a smug grin on his face.

Tim’s turn came and maybe it was slight over confidence that made him over shoot the ball out of bounds. Too much power on the swing, he said. He could hear Steph talking and it distracted him, he whined. “Don’t give me that look, man!” He cried as Cass shook her head in disappointment at him.

“I…believed in you.” She said. Tim clutched his heart and walked back to his spot next to Steph with his head down in shame.

When Cass went up, no one was really expecting much her first try. Not to say they didn’t think she wouldn’t be good at it, but obviously they weren’t going to tease her on her first try. She positioned herself behind the line like Jason showed her and gently knocked her club into the ball. It crept slowly down the lane, stopping barely halfway down toward the hole.

Steph gave her an encouraging smile, “Aww, Cassie. It’s alright. That was actually pretty good for your first—”

She didn’t stop. Cass walked down the lane and hit her ball again, a little harder this time, and it stopped inches from the hole.

Jason’s mouth dropped open. “Wait—”

“Cass, that’s not how you—” Tim started.

She did it a second time and over shot it. Then she did it a third and hit it into the hole. The three Bats stared at her slack jawed—sort of impressed she had the guts—and Cass pointed with her thumb down at the hole. “Win.” She announced and smiled.

“No! That’s cheating!” Jason barked. “You can’t do that!”

Cass shrugged. “I just did. Win.”

“No! No win, Cass!”

“Winning. Right now.”

Stephanie twisted her mouth up, feeling a laugh coming on but not wanting to egg Cass on. “It’s against the rules! Get the ball out of the hole and put it ba—“

There was a scribble. She heard pencil against paper.

Narrowing her eyes, Steph turned to Tim and saw that he had the score notebook in his hand. His eyes flicked up at her and she knew.

“Tim. Did you just write something?”

He looked away and said, “Nooooope.” Stepping away, he flipped the notebook closed.

That motherfu—

“Tim.” Steph took a threatening step closer to him, holding her club like an actual club.

“Nope.” He pocketed the notebook and shot her an innocent look. He was also taking several steps back, ready to book it just in case.

“Tim, what did you write?”

“Nope.”

“Tim.” Oh, he was a dead man.

“Nooooope!”

He was running now. Stephanie threw her golf club to the side and tackled his back with a war cry, her legs wrapping around his chest. “Give me the book!” She yelled, trying to get at his pants best she could. Tim was trying to throw her off, wincing when she yanked at his hair, while attempting to protect his pockets.

By this time, Jason had given up trying to wrestle Cass’ ball out of the hole at the rick of his own hand. He turned to see his team mate seemingly beating the crap out of Tim. For a second, he thought about letting her go out because—hey—it would be funny buuut— “Steph! What are you doing?”

“Tim’s a cheater! He’s a freaking cheating cheater!”

“I am not!” Tim had the decency to sound a little offended; too bad he was also laughing.

“You totally wrote ‘one’ in that book! You counted it! I know you did!”

“He did what?” Okay, now it was on. Jason tossed his own club away and went for Tim’s legs. While Red Robin could usually fend off two adversaries at the same time with no problem (and sometimes with his eyes closed) he had to admit it was reasonably more difficult when both adversaries were going for his jeans. Eventually, the three toppled over on their back and Stephanie managed to pin Tim’s arms down while Jason shoved his hand into Tim’s pocket and stole away the notebook.

“Aha!” He flipped through the book and there it was in Tim’s handwriting. The number one right next to Cass’ name. “You freaking rat!” With Steph his holding his hand, Tim had no way of dodging Jason when he used the notebook to slap him several times across the face. He did kick his feet, striving to wiggle away—knowing full well that Jason and Steph could and would do something worse.

“Um…guys? We’re…uh, in trouble.”

The three on the floor froze instantly and turned their hands. Cass was scratching her face and biting her lip, pointing at the very irritated putt-putt manager fuming next to her. He had his hands on his hips, his entire red face twisted up in anger. He pointed at the human pile and commanded, “You two! Off!”

Jason and Steph threw their hands off Tim and got on their feet. “Yes, sir!”

It didn’t take long for Tim to follow and, like the rest of them, he had the self-awareness to look guilty about his behavior. The manager, however, didn’t seem like he was going to go easy on them. “You listen here and you listen good! This a family place. We don’t allow fighting for anything. I don’t care who started it—you aren’t allowed to do it again, ya got that?!”

“…yes sir…” Came the response.

“Good. Now I’m giving you all one warning. If I have to talk to you again, you’re out! Understand?”

“…yes sir…” They sounded like a group of five year olds.

“Glad you understand.” He said, peering at all of them with a critical eye. He brought two fingers up to his face, “I’m watching you.” He turned on his heel and stormed away from the four of them, likely to go back to where ever he was hiding. Once he was far enough, the four Bats released a sigh in unison.

It took Tim about ten seconds to break the shamed hush. “Great job, you two.” Jason and Steph shot him a glare which promised swift payback later on.

A decision had to be made about what to do about the score. After some deliberation and bullying, everyone came to the conclusion that no, Cass is not ‘winning’ and the shot didn’t count. Despite Cass’ pouting, she put her ball back where it landed and waited for the next turn to smack it closer to the hole. It took her three tries to get it in; her displeasure about it was felt by everyone. She made sure of that.

After that, the rest of the game had gone on pretty smoothly. With the occasional threatening of bodily (and sometimes hair) harm, every one behaved. It was pretty fun, if you could believe it. Being kids, not having to act like detectives, or soldiers, or heroes, it felt good to be in their skin for once. For the night, the four of them forgot what it was like to be ‘a Bat’.

Instead, they were just…themselves. Young, silly, full of as much as pain as they had laughter. No one needed to do something unhealthy or harmful to feel something.

It was nice to forget. It was great to be able to do this.

It was like they were all friends or something.

Not heroes.

So this is what they missed out on.

Thing was—and this is something no one expected—Tim was amazingly competitive about mini golf. Ridiculously so. No one really got why; maybe it was his everlasting need to be good at what he did (or maybe it just because Tim was naturally an absurd person), but nobody was stopping him. The farther he got through the night, the more he would declare he would get a hole in one or he’d do something to make up for it.

He’d get a hole in one through the fake Statue of Liberty or he’d lick the ground.

He’d get a hole in one while stand on the UFO display or he’d tell everyone what was actually in his CD collection that he’d been hiding for years.

He’d get a hole in one by bouncing his ball off the back of the dragon, the slide, that fence, and the weird wax mannequin of President Nixon or he’d let Cass shave his head.

Thankfully, he got a hole in one on that last wager—he liked his gorgeous black locks.

Point was, Tim was out to prove something and Cass, Steph, and Jason were totally okay at letting him do so and watching him fail.

Hence when he got to the twentieth hole and proclaimed loudly, “If I don’t make this hole in one try, I am going to jump in the lake!” The lake in question was the indoor pool of water that ran through the entire indoor park. Several times, they had lost balls in the water and had to fish them out. It was a murky, grayish tint—one that screamed ‘I haven’t been filtered in a long time’—but for Gotham water, all anyone could say was that it didn’t smell and that was good enough.

So when he said it, all anyone could do was roll their eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, sure, Timbo.” Jason said, sitting on the single step leading to the current course, his hands and chin leaning on his club. Cass was positioned on his back, doodling on the back pages of their score book.

They were pretty sure Steph and Jason were leading, but honestly no one cared any more to take any real notes. At some point during the night, the four forgot about it and just played—the only one who was keeping score was Tim and that was on terms of ‘hit hole-in-one every time’.

Stephanie was sitting on the fence blocking the lake. “I’m gonna hold you to that, Tim. One dunk in that nasty water. No backies.”

Tim pointed his club in her direction, “You’re on.”

Club head on the ground, Tim carefully scanned the length of the course and how he would exactly get the ball in. With on powerful swing, Tim hit his ball and sent it falling—right past the hole and off the entire course.

Tim didn’t wait to see where his ball went. Without hesitation and before anyone could process what he was doing, Tim ran off towards the lake, jumped the fence, and went into the water head first with his hands behind his back.

The three bats all watched paralyzed.

“Holy shit! He actually freaking did it!” Jason said with a stunned laugh, he and Cass running to the fence to see where their brother went. Cass hung her body off the railing and shouted, “Nice!”

“Tim!” Steph shouted, searching the water when he didn’t come up. “Tim, you idiot! We’re gonna get kicked out!”

“You’re the…um, one who dared….him, Steph.”

“I didn’t think he’d do it!”

As she said that, something moved under the water. It was Tim sitting up. His head wobbled back and forth, eyes rolling around like marbles in a bowl, and he winced.

“There’s the ass of the hour.” Jason smirked, “You proud of yourself?”

“I…uh…”

Cass frowned, “Are you, um, okay?”

There was a struggle for him to get up on his feet. Soaking from head to toe, Tim toddled around unsure and said, “The…pool wasn’t as deep as I thought?” He looked around with a confused look on his face and hissed, “I think I got a, um—what’s the word. Concession? Yeah. That—that thing right…oh.” He had touched the back of his head. When he took his hand away, he showed it to the rest. His palm was covered in blood.

“I’m bleeding?”

Cass, Steph, and Jason’s eyes all widened, staring at his red hand dumbly. Out of Jason mouth came an “Oh, shit.”

Then, Tim more or less went limp, collapsing while his eyes rolled back into his head and it took all three of the bats to rush in and catch him before he hit the ground again.

They were so gonna get banned.

\--

The good news was that Tim didn’t, by some miracle, get a concession. It was a flesh wound and nothing else. Which was good, because that allowed the rest of them to smack him around for scaring the ever loving crap out of them.

The bad news was that they were definitely forever banned from ‘Happy World’s Golf-a-Palooza’. Jason said that the place wasn’t even that cool so their loss, but everyone could tell he was pretty put out about it.

The double bad news was when they got back, Dick and Babs were waiting for them and they were also very put out—but for obviously different reasons.

“How?!” Babs asked, arms thrown out at the mess the three were. “How does this even happen?!”

There was silence and then Cass spoke up in a monotone voice, “Golf game was too strong.”

Everyone stared at her. There was a snort, a giggle, and then, the four of them broke into hysterical laughter and fell on the floor.

Dick and Babs could only look and decide right there that none of them were allowed to play mini golf ever again.


End file.
